Man oh man. What a show. These guys have still got it enough to get on stage and blow everyone away. The entire room moved through the set and didn’t stop. I saw one woman start wiping tears during At home he’s a tourist. She was having one of those laughing crys. I guess when you expect to never see a band live again, and then you see them take a house, it can run a bit emotional. Hell, I even felt it.
They beat the crap out of a microwave oven and fed the crowd a life size paper cut-out of John wayne (which was torn to shreads on crowd impact)
Of course Dave was the star tonight as Portland is his new home town.
Some of the set was: What We All Want, At Home He’s A Tourist, Not Great Men, I Parade Myself, He’d Send In The Army, Natural’s Not In It, Paralysed, Damaged Goods, A Hole In The Wallet, I Found That Essence Rare and of course Anthrax and To Hell With Poverty.
In all, a show to not be missed if they come to your town.
Next stop is Seattle on the 6th and Vancouver BC on the 7th. Their tour list is here. http://www.gangoffour.co.uk/
The were mindblowing at the Fillmore. Also, I’m always surprised how little love they get in the scheme of things. I mean, this is a band who directly influenced, what, thousands of acts, from Fugazi to the Talking Heads, to the yet-again-hip-dance-resurgence we see today. I mean, I heard Franz Ferdinand or Bloc Party and all I think of is “Entertainment!”
From what I understand Andy and Jon were together in a pub and got talked into getting on stage. It wen’t quite well so they planned a couple shows for fun. At some point Dave and Hugo got a call and said “you bet. It will be fun”
After a few more shows they decided to make a small tour. Next thing they know the tour grows.
No new songs - just a brief jog around to some mid size venues for fun. It really showed. Four guys on stage with nothing to prove, doing what they do, and having a good time. Case in point: Andy took a call in the middle of a song on his mobile DURING the show. Later the other three gave him a hard time. At the end of the set Andy said “My uncle says you guys (meaning the crowd) sound great”. It must have been his uncle on the mobile.